Civilians Trapped in Mingora

Taliban fighters have taken control of Mingora, a town in Pakistan's Swat Valley, and have executed seven people on suspicion of being army informers. They have left the bodies unburied in the main square. Civilians cannot flee because the roads around the town have been blocked by the Army to prevent the Taliban from running and hiding in the surrounding tribal regions.

"Please, please, please, do not call me again – they will cut my throat and say that I was spying," whispered one resident still inside Mingora, when contacted by the AFP news agency.

A shopkeeper pleaded: "People are becoming mentally ill, our senses have shut down, children and women are crying. Please tell the Government to pull us out of here.

"Just imagine how we are surviving. Forget the lack of electricity and other problems – the Taleban are everywhere and heavy exchanges of fire are routine at night."

When the security cordon around Mingora was lifted briefly two days ago, another 100,000 surged to escape on motorbikes, carts, rickshaws and on foot, a tide of humanity clogging the roads in their desperation to reach the squalid and overcrowded refugee camps where more than a million have already fled.

(Image: Rashid Iqbal/EPA, from the Times Online story.)